Outlook for Mac Gets New Look, Improved Performance

Microsoft has a special Halloween treat for Mac users this year—a new version of Outlook.

The new Outlook for Mac delivers a fresh look and feel to your inbox, along with some performance and reliability tweaks, like a new threading model and database improvements that promise to make email less of a hassle. It also offers a more consistent experience between Outlook on the PC, Web, and mobile devices. Scrolling and switching between tabs should also be better thanks to the new, more modern user interface, Microsoft said.

The new Outlook for Mac is available to all Office 365 customers now. Consumer subscribers can grab the update from the My Account page, and Commercial customers can find it by accessing their Office 365 Portal (Gear icon > Office 365 Settings > Software > Outlook for Mac icon) or visiting the Software page.

Meanwhile, on top of the new version of Outlook for Mac, Microsoft announced it will release a new version of its Office for Mac suite next year. That includes Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and OneNote.

"Historically we have released a new version of Office for Mac approximately six to eight months after Office for Windows," the Office 365 team wrote in a blog post. "However, following the release of Office 365 we made the conscious decision to prioritize mobile first and cloud first scenarios. This meant delivering and continuing to improve Office on a variety phones (iPhone, Windows Phone, and Android) and tablets (iPad and Windows)."

The new Office for Mac will be available in beta in the first half of 2015 and should be ready for primetime in the second half of the year. Office 365 commercial and consumer customers will get the new version at no additional cost.